Genshin Impact's 2.2 update Into the Perilous Labyrinth of Fog comes out 13th October, developer miHoYo has announced.
This is the update that makes Aloy from Sony's Horizon series available for free on all platforms, including PlayStation, PC and mobile (Aloy was previously only available on PlayStation).
We've seen a lot of retro remakes and remasters in recent times and even brand-new games built with a vintage aesthetic, but the recent arrival of Zool Redimensioned is intriguing - simply because of the way in which it was made and the ethos behind its development. Yes, one of the objectives behind the game is to return the Amiga platforming icon to gamers' attention - and yes, perhaps this is about testing the waters for some kind of return for the ninja from the Nth Dimension. But just as important as that is the fact that Zool Redimensioned was built by students at the Sumo Digital Academy, creating their own C++ engine as the foundation for the remaster. It's an investment from a major studio in nurturing a new wave of game developers.
You can learn all about it in this special DF Retro interview, where John Linneman and Audi Sorlie talk to Jacob Habgood, director of education partnerships at the Sumo Group about how Zool Redimensioned came to be, while Sumo Digital Academy intern Emma Rogers shares her experiences in helping to create the new version of the game. On top of that, we get some fascinating insights and historical perspectives from none other than Ian Stewart - co-founder of Gremlin Graphics, the 80s/90s publishing powerhouse responsible not just for Zool, but a range of almost legendary micro-computer franchises from Potty Pigeon, Bounder, Monty Mole, through to Switchblade and the officially licensed Lotus racing games - and many more.
Oh my. I've certainly done some yelping in my time but on this week's episode of Ian's VR Corner, I let out the biggest Homer Simpson style shriek I think I've ever done. Twice.
In the video below, you can watch me get absolutely terrified by Forewarned, a relatively new multiplayer VR game from Dreambyte Games that's slowly building up quite the buzz amongst the streaming community.
I'm having a blast playing Halo Infinite's Big Team Battle mode this weekend. I'm also having a blast watching some of the silly bugs that have emerged from the shooter's technical preview.
Before I go on, I want to stress that Halo Infinite runs beautifully on my Xbox Series S, and pretty much all my games have been free of glitches and bugs. But I just had to cover this particular bug because, well, it's so cute. And funny.
High-profile Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City reverse-engineering fan projects were pulled offline for a second time after yet another Take-Two takedown.
The GTA 3 and Vice City reverse-engineering fan projects known as re3 and reVC were first hit by a DMCA takedown in February, with Rockstar parent company Take-Two claiming copyright infringement.
Amazon is blocking New World players from creating new characters on full servers as it continues to struggle with the MMO's explosive popularity. Now, when a server is full it will be greyed out, with a note to say character creation is not possible.
Of course, if you've already created a character on a full server, you can log in (or, queue to log in, anyway) and play with them as normal.
With FIFA 22, EA is trying a bunch of new stuff - and part of that is selling the kind of cosmetic items we've not seen in the football series before.
FIFA 22 launched proper yesterday and with that global release came the first cosmetic items in the in-game store.
The Medium is an interesting game for sure - one we've covered in the past on both Xbox Series consoles and PCs, but I must admit, going into this one, I didn't expect the PlayStation 5 port to see so many changes from the existing console versions. Just about every multi-platform project we've seen so far on the new wave of consoles has seen effective feature parity between Series X and PS5 because, after all, they are very similar machines at the architectural level. However, with The Medium, Bloober Studio appears to have rebalanced the game to produce something very similar but also quite different to the original Series X release.
We'll get to the tweaked visuals shortly, but beyond the graphical revamp, there are DualSense controller features added too - rain, wind and other atmospheric effects are mapped to haptics, while some dialogue and effects are routed through the controller speaker. There's also gyro aiming when investigating objects. It's nice to see these features added, but only the haptics appealed to me really.
Sega has unveiled its mystery mobile RPG.
The game Sega teased last month (and subsequently pilloried on YouTube for being a mobile game) is called Sin Chronicle, and it's set for iOS and Android on 15th December in Japan. A western release has yet to be announced.
The Elder Scrolls Online's Gates of Oblivion adventure concludes 1st November with the release of the Deadlands DLC, Bethesda has announced.
The final DLC in the year-long campaign hits the PC, Mac and Stadia version of The Elder Scrolls Online: Deadlands on 1st November, then PlayStation and Xbox on 16th November.
Microsoft has announced an expansive set of new accessibility features coming to Xbox during its latest Xbox Accessibility Showcase.
The full 40-minute showcase is well worth a watch, featuring developer interviews and player insights across a wide range of accessibility issues, but the freshly announced features coming to Xbox soon and in the longer term are summarised below.
Up until recently, the only EA game you could find on GeForce Now was Apex Legends; however, the publisher is now stretching its legs a little further into Nvidia's game streaming service with the addition of four new titles.
GeForce Now, which lets subscribers stream and play games they've purchased from the likes of Steam and the Epic Store on a range of different devices (provided Nvidia has secured the rights), is adding a total 14 new titles the service this month.
Paradox Interactive, the developer behind the likes of Crusader Kings 3 and Stellaris, has cancelled "several" unannounced projects so it can focus on its "proven game niches".
"Paradox Interactive was born and raised in strategy and management games," said Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester as part of the announcement. "It is where we have our heart and our mind and we are passionate about making games that our players can enjoy over a long period of time. Therefore we have sharpened our pipeline further to ensure that the projects with the highest potential have the resources necessary for the best possible development."
Next Fest, Steam's semi-regular online event - in which PC players are invited to slowly drown in an unceasing deluge of demos for upcoming games - returns today, 1st October.
Originally titled the Steam Game Festival, this eighth outing for the indie-focussed event (which gained the Next Fest moniker back in June), spans seven days - it concludes next Thursday, 7th October - and promises "hundreds" of new demos and "oodles" of developer livestreams.
Paradox Interactive's sweeping historical grand strategy title Europa Universalis 4 is the latest freebie to grace the Epic Games Store.
Released back in 2013 and still tottering along today (its most recent expansion, Leviathan, was so disastrous its director issued an apology), Europa Universalis 4 gives players control of a country somewhere between 1444 to 1821 and lets them shape it into global significance through trade, diplomacy, colonisation, and war.
Halo Infinite's latest technical tests are in full flight. Last weekend, the action kicked off with the trio of maps we saw in the initial preview, backed by new game maps, offline training options and the surprise debut of a new 'Behemoth' map. The testing continues this weekend, and the arrival of big team battles is enticing. Based on what we played, the console versions are looking more impressive overall - and there's good news in terms of improvements to the game's performance modes on Xbox Series X and, perhaps surprisingly, Xbox One X.
However, the truth is that for the most part, the technical make-up of Halo Infinite is mostly unchanged from the game's multiplayer test debut. So, to recap, Xbox One S is clearly the most challenged version. It attempts to run at 1080p but has aggressive dynamic resolution scaling, independently shifting pixel counts on both the horizontal and vertical resolutions. This can look rather rough, a situation not helped by a 30fps cap that sees new frames delivered unevenly, adding extra choppiness. However, it is Halo Infinite, it is playable and while you'll be disadvantaged playing against Xbox users on any other console, it is still enjoyable.
Everyone's doing the multiverse these days. Fortnite. Tom Holland. Next up is What Lies in the Multiverse, a story-focused side-scroller from indie developers Studio Voyager and IguanaBee.
A press release accompanying today's trailer promises a dramatic comedy story and 2D platforming, but it's the game's seamless transitions between dimensions which truly catch the eye.
A remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 is reportedly in the works, with Konami handing development to Virtuos Studios.
That's according to a VGC report that also lists a number of other upcoming, unannounced Konami projects, such as remasters of other Metal Gear Solid titles, and a new Castlevania "reimagining" being worked on internally, all due to be announced next year.
Konami has issued a statement on eFootball following its disastrous launch this week.
If you've read our impressions of the game, which launched in extremely limited form this week as a free download, you'll know of the many issues currently affecting Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer follow-up.
At this point in the series' life, what exactly is a Final Fantasy game? Sometimes it's nice to be reminded, as we've been a couple of times in recently, it's whatever the hell it wants to be: a colourful karter with chocobos and moogles going wheel-to-wheel across lysergic race tracks, or a dour action game smeared in early noughties edginess.
I'm not here to talk about Chocobo GP today I'm afraid - though good lord am I looking forward to trying that out - and rather to provide a brief update on Stranger of Paradise, Team Ninja's muscular Final Fantasy spin-off that debuted to much bemusement at Square Enix's E3 show back in June.
Amazon has asked new New World players to join servers with low wait times as it works on increasing the population caps of existing servers.
New World had a huge launch this week, reaching a peak of 758,543 concurrent players on Steam. It's the fifth most-popular game ever on Steam, according to peak concurrents.
The chaos-filled Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin arrives for PC via the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on 18th March 2022.
Square Enix just announced the date during its Tokyo Games Show 2021 livestream, and also showed a fresh (and overall, much better) trailer for the much-memed game.
Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: Original Sin, a classic from the real old days, and something strange and wonderful.
If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We've Been Playing, here's our archive.
A new development roadmap for Assassin's Creed Valhalla has highlighted four content drops coming this autumn.
Several things stand out. First, the upcoming Oskoreia Festival due sometime later this season. Interestingly, this is not the Halloween Samhain festival fans were expecting - an event which also forms part of Valhalla's main campaign.
EA "unintentionally released" FIFA 22 OTW pre-order player packs before OTW player items were in the game, it's said.
This Ultimate Team-focused pre-order bonus relates to coveted Ones to Watch cards - special versions of players who made high-profile summer transfers. Examples this year include Lionel Messi, who moved from Barcelona to PSG, and Cristiano Ronaldo, who left Juventus for Manchester United.
A film version of hugely-popular horror franchise Five Nights at Freddy's has been delayed due to controversial creator Scott Cawthon, and the project's director has now left.
Harry Potter and Home Alone director Chris Colombus was on board to direct the FNAF film adaptation, which was set to begin shooting in spring this year.
Bloober Team, the developer behind the psychedelic horror chills of The Medium, Observer, and Blair Witch, is teasing a new project in its Layers of Fear series.
The original Layers of Fear launched in 2016, taking players on a surreal first-person horror trip through the ever-shifting home of a tortured painter, and its 2018 sequel, Layers of Fear 2 - inspired by the golden age of Hollywood - followed a brand-new protagonist on an avant-garde journey through the innards of an ocean liner and their troubled past.
Geoff Keighley's annual end-of-year spectacular, The Game Awards, is officially returning for more celebratory escapades and video game reveals on 9th December
This year's show - in a bid to return to the glitz and glamour of previous, pre-pandemic years - is planned to be an "full-scale", in-person event and will be held at Los Angeles' Microsoft Theatre. Expect the usual mix of awards, world premieres, and musical performances - Keighley has already confirmed The Game Awards Orchestra will be back on-stage for another melodic turn - with the whole thing being streamed live for the viewing pleasure of all.
Shin'en Multimedia's brilliant game - The Touryst - is now available for PS4 and PS5 consoles and it is now confirmed as the very first native 8K rendered game on the new generation of consoles, running beautifully at 60 frames per second no less. That's right: according to our discussions with the developer, the game internally renders at 7680x4320 - no temporal super-sampling, no reprojection, no checkerboarding, no AI upscaling. It's full-on 4320p.
Of course, there's a slight problem here in that PlayStation 5 does not support 8K output via HDMI 2.1, despite proudly displaying an 8K logo on the box. In this case, Shin'en is using the extreme resolution for super-sampling anti-aliasing: essentially, every pixel on your 4K screen is downsampled from four pixels for pristine image quality. As for what kind of difference this makes to the overall presentation, Shin'en has you covered there too. You can actually drop back down to native 4K in the options menu - just disable anti-aliasing. Shin'en tells us that when and if the platform holder makes good on the PS5 packaging's 8K promises (VRR first please, Sony), a simple patch should allow the game to output the 4320p framebuffer directly for a 1:1 pixel match on an 8K display.
Reporting players who break the rules of Battlefield 2042 will be easier than ever before, developer DICE has said.
Writing today in the game's extensive community charter, DICE said its system to flag players would be faster than in previous Battlefield titles, and can now be completed in-game.
We finally have a decent look at Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters gameplay - and I'm getting a distinct XCOM vibe.
The video, below, shows off the turn-based combat, which sees the player control a squad of Grey Knights against the puss-packed followers of Chaos god Nurgle in a story penned by Black Library author Aaron Dembski-Bowden.
A listing for Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition has been spotted on South Korea's game rating board's site.
According to the details of the listing, the application for an official rating was made by Take-Two Interactive for an action game originating from the United States.
If you canvassed a bunch of people about why they like Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes games, it's probably not unreasonable to suggest combat wouldn't feature too prominently on any resulting list. In the run-up to Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One's November release, however, Frogwares is trying to change some minds with a fresh look at the series' revamped fisticuffs.
Frogwares says Chapter One's new combat system is built "to suit the character of Sherlock", meaning that while melee attacks and firearms are both present and extensively utilised throughout fight sequences, players won't be able to take much of a beating.
